


Wishing Won't Make It So

by Ink_Gypsy



Series: Lucky Clover Diner Universe [38]
Category: Lord of the Rings RPF (AU)
Genre: Lukcy Clover Diner Universe, M/M, Sean Astin/Elijah Wood - Freeform, fffc, prompt fics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 12:53:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17622734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Gypsy/pseuds/Ink_Gypsy
Summary: Hoping to reunite them in the New Year, Sean suggests that Elijah go to see his mother.





	Wishing Won't Make It So

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Frodo Flash Fiction Challenge community, responding to the prompt, Closure.

[ ](https://imgur.com/ymJBJ7a)

They were doing the dinner dishes when Sean said casually, “I think you should go see your mother.”

Elijah was taking the dishes out of the drain board after Sean had washed them, and almost dropped the glass he’d just picked up. “You’re kidding, right?” he said.

“No, Elijah. I’m totally serious.”

“Well you can forget it. There’s no way I’m going back there.”

“Just consider it,” Sean tried.

“Why should I?” Elijah demanded. “You know what she’s like, how she feels about me. Why should I do that to myself, and why the fuck would you want me to?”

“Because she’s your mother, the only one you have.”

“And I’m the only son she has, but that doesn’t seem to matter to her. What makes you think she even wants to see me? If I did go to the house, she’d probably slam the door in my face Her husband sure as hell will.”

“I don’t know if she wants to see you, but I think you should go anyway, try and make things right with her.”

“She’s the one with the problem, Sean, not me. I don’t think it’s possible to make things right between us, but even if it was, why do you suddenly want me to try now?”

Sean shut off the faucet and drained the sink. “Because it’s that time of year.”

“Huh?”

Sean gathered his thoughts, wanting to make Elijah understand why he felt this was so important. “We’ve just begun a new year,” he started. “Every January 1st we start the clock on life again, hoping to do a better job with everything than we did the year before. Every January gives us a new beginning, and the chance to fix things that are broken in our lives.”

Elijah sighed. “What’s the point of a new beginning when the ending is always going to be the same?”

“You don’t know that it will be.”

“But I do, Sean,” Elijah insisted. “Did you forget the way she acted when she came to the diner on Mother’s Day? Or the horrible things she said to you?”

Sean shook his head. “I haven’t forgotten, but it was me she had a problem with.”

“It wasn’t just you,” Elijah reminded him. “She had the same problem with me. Why else would I have been out on the street in the middle of a snow storm instead of being safe at home on the night we met?”

“She may have had a change of heart.”

“Not possible.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s no maybe about it. You told my mother that she’d only be welcome back at the diner if she respected our relationship.”

“I remember.”

“And she hasn’t come back, has she?”

“Not yet,” Sean admitted.

Elijah threw his hands up in frustration. “Sean, you always want to think the best of everyone. It’s one of the things I love most about you, but there won’t be a happy ending, not where my mother is concerned.”

“I hope you’re wrong about that,” Sean said. “I hate the way things are between you and your mother, and I wish there was some way to make them better.”

“But you can’t. I’d give anything to have the same kind of loving family you do, but I don’t, and wishing won’t make it so.”

Reluctantly admitting defeat, Sean said, “I’m sorry if I upset you, Elijah. I just want your life to be as full as possible, and for me, a fuller life means having people who care for you in it.”

“I do have people who care for me,” Elijah told him. “I have you.”

“And you always will,” Sean promised, “but it’s not the same as having family.”

“Why should family only be something you’re born into?” Elijah asked. “If our real family doesn’t want us, shouldn’t we be able to choose one that does?”

“That’s the way it should be,” Sean agreed.

“Then I choose you, Sean. You’re my family now, the only family I need.” At the sound of the familiar cry, he looked down to see their blue-eyed, chocolate brown cat winding her small body through first his legs and then Sean’s. “Except for you, Cocoa,” Elijah told her, reaching down to stroke her soft fur. “You’re part of this family, too.”

Standing beside him as Elijah stroked the cat they’d adopted, three strangers who’d made a home together, Sean recognized that Elijah was right. If love was what mattered, they truly were a family.


End file.
